


Storytime: Not-So-Eternal Sleep

by ellorgast, smokingbomber



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Screenplay/Script Format, Smokingbomber Storytime, mostly no capitalization, no beta we die like prince endymion, some drama but mostly comedy, this reads like it was in a chatroom because it was, very little punctuation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28578285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellorgast/pseuds/ellorgast, https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokingbomber/pseuds/smokingbomber
Summary: I have literally no idea how the hell all four of them got frozen in eternal sleep to start this mess off, but they did, and it was in 1992 because that's when classic aired. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY GET FOUND IN 2019!! The rating's for language and a little gratuitous violence in some parts.
Relationships: Chiba Mamoru & Shitennou, Chiba Mamoru/Tsukino Usagi, Kaiou Michiru/Tenoh Haruka, Kunzite/Zoisite, Tsukino Usagi & Inner Senshi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

D-POINT

visual: all four of the guys encased in crystal/ice/whateverthefuck jadeite got stuck in in classic, under the floor. and the girls go to what's left of d-point, years later, making sure that everything is wiped out instead of dormant. 

their footstep sounds change as they walk across the floor of the throne room, so ami washes away the dust and they see the guys down there, frozen: neph and jadeite screaming, zoisite hunched up in a defensive ball, and kunzite just looking up, arms crossed, expression flat.

it's been enough years now that they all remember. that part of the past is something they never talk about in front of mamoru, not after the first time his face went still and then he pleasantly excused himself, and usagi went scrambling after him, and came back in after an hour with red-rimmed eyes and said 'they're his you. he doesn't want you to forget them, or not talk about them, but if you could do it when he's not here-- he didn't ask for that, i'm asking you...'

so they've talked about the guys a lot -- talking through their grief, through how betrayed they felt, about their mixed feelings, and about how the guys can't have been endymion's them, not if they betrayed him like that, but then also how they didn't have the benefit of sailor crystals like themselves and endymion in order to resist beryl and metallia.

so when they find them, maybe in college, maybe after college but well before apocalypse/crystal tokyo, it's a heartpunch. ami is already scanning for life signs, usagi gripping her arm; venus can't stop staring, standing over kunzite (until she realizes that if he's alive and can see, she's giving him an upskirt, at which point she delicately moves all the girls back behind where the guys can concievably see). mako doesn't care and is kneeling on the surface, her hands pressed flat against it, face screwed up and trying not to cry; rei is absently watching jadeite whenever she's not actively paying attention to ami, face set.

usagi says in a strangled voice, 'if they're not alive, what do we tell mamo-chan?'

ami says, 'i can't even tell if they are. i can't get a reading past the substance. i can't even get a reading on what the substance is.'

vee is about to say something when rei all of a sudden pulls out an ofuda and hurls it down at the floor. for a second nothing happens except that the crystal shimmers, and ami gets a flicker of a reading of life-- and then an earthquake starts.

the whole pocket dimension starts to destabilize, starts to fall down and apart around them. it's going to collapse and take the guys in crystal with it, and the girls too if they don't get out of there.

usagi shrieks and grabs for hands and venus is yelling urgently about teleporting, and usagi's shrieking resolves into 'AROUND THEM AROUND THEM' so the circle adjusts even as the girls start yelling out 'X ETERNAL POWER' 

and we see the cavernous throne room collapse amidst the lightshow.

at the hospital where mamoru's doing his residency he has a seizure like he used to get in classic when he was transforming before he knew he was tuxedo kamen. mamoru's holding a can of morning rescue which he drops and spills and the camera pans to focus on that before--

MORNING RESCUUUUUE MAMO HOME

they end up in mamoru's living room with this giant goddamn crystal with the guys in it  
and collapse to catch their breath for a while, sprawled on everything and coated in earthquake dust.

by the time they finally get around to discussing wtf to do, mamoru's coming in the door, looking exhausted and worried af, and he opens the door and stares

because What. The. Fuck.

his living room is coated in caustic dust and full of eternal bubblegum-sleeve senshi in various states of splat and wings and there's this immense elephant in the middle of everything

and his guys are in it

and his eyes start watering

and he sneezes

and he yells 'YOU GUYS ARE CLEANING THIS UP' and goes into his bedroom and slams the door

rei yells 'YOU'RE WELCOME, ASSBUTT'

mamoru slides down the door and curls up in fetal position against it, hiding his face, because he's emotional af and doesn't know WHAT DO because he's mamoru

usagi starts to go over to the bedroom door and ami says in a small voice, 'let's actually clean up the mess first, you know how OCD he is'

cue cleaning montage with the centerpiece still the elephant in the room they are just cleaning around it

they can hear mamoru taking a shower

and just as they're finishing up vacuuming and wiping down leather upholstery, the bedroom door opens, and everyone freezes, and mamoru's just looking at the giant crystal

they all watch him silently as he goes over to put his hands on it

and it's minako who goes over there first, putting one hand on the crystal, and reaching up to put her other hand on his shoulder.

ami says really quietly, 'they're alive.'

mako says in a wobbly voice, 'and we're going to get them out, no matter what.'

rei says, 'if purifying them doesn't kill them, that is.'

usagi punches rei in the arm, then goes to glue herself to mamoru's other side. 'they're alive, so, we can save them.'

mamoru's one arm absently goes around usagi, but he can't take his eyes away from them. 

minako says levelly, 'they're probably full of dark energy. they don't know that that fight is long over. they don't remember who they were before beryl got them. they don't remember the silver millennium. they might be full enough of dark energy that they'll resist purification and it will kill them. we might have to fight them. we might have to hurt them.' she takes a breath. 'but we gotta get them out of there.'

mamoru murmurs because he can't trust his voice, 'everyone...' and his hand on the crystal turns into a fist, and he leans his forehead against it. 'thank you. i'm sorry. i know it's-- not for me-- not for me only, that you're doing this. but thank you.'

minako punches him in the arm as usagi is squeaking in protest that obviously even if it weren't for the girls too AND FOR THE GUYS THEMSELVES BC IT WASN'T THEIR FAULT then they would still do it because they love mamoru, and rei and mako and ami are also talking over each other in the background

and then ami's voice is like a whipcrack over everything else 'MAMORU WHAT ARE YOU DOING'

everyone shuts up and stares for a second and then minako abruptly yanks mamoru away from the crystal, because cracks of light were spiderwebbing across it from his hand and vee and usagi are suddenly remembering what he did in black moon arc

but vee pulls him away before he can shatter it

it's just sitting there cracked now

'i-- i'm sorry. i wasn't thinking. i just wanted them out--'

ami, taking readings. 'it's still intact. at least we know when we're ready to deal with whatever happens next, mamoru can get them out physically.'

so the girls stick around for a while even though at this point mamoru is really craving introvert time. vee doesn't trust that he won't just let them out. usagi and mako and ami are really worried about him, ami is worried about the crystal breaking on its own now that it's got weaknesses, and mako doesn't want to stop looking at nephrite. rei is busying herself setting up some basic wards/mystical warning bells, and also loudly opinioning on everything to keep winding usagi and minako up so that at least their attention isn't on mamoru and he doesn't have to 100% be in performance mode until they leave

there's a lot of takeaway eating and they all sort of fall silent, not all at once, but gradually while eating and then afterwards, and they're all staring at the crystal

minako and usagi have noodles hanging out of their mouths as they stare half the time i mean really

then usagi's got a hand over mamoru's in addition to leaning on him, and whatever she gets out of that, rei is agreeing by observation of his face, which minako and ami and mako won't look at right now. rei says, 'anyway i have to open the shrine alone in the morning unless you jokers want to help, grandpa's not supposed to do a lot of physical stuff for another two weeks yet.' and she's getting up and gathering empty cartons to throw them out, so mako automatically starts helping her tidy up, and ami realizes what's going on and delicately gets up, too. 'i'm defending my thesis on monday and really need to practice.' (or whatever, something intimidating and academic)

minako glares at rei, then at ami. mako says 'i'll help, rei.' usagi, 'me too!' rei 'noooo just mako is fine, thanks though. <3' minako glares at mako, then eyes mamoru and usagi. 'promise you're not going to open it without us, mamoru. give your word.'

mamoru just looks tired. 'obviously. i give my word.' and then he kisses Usagi's head, and usagi reluctantly gets up. 'are you sure you don't-- i shouldn't just--'

mamoru, 'usako. you know you can always--'

usagi laughs but looks annoyed. 'mamo-chan. mamoru-baka. i love you.' and most of that conversation has actually taken place silently, and usagi literally drags minako out of the apartment, and everyone else follows suit.


	2. Chapter 2

MORNING RESCUUUUUE GUYS WAKE

so OF COURSE you know the crystal's compromised enough to shatter on its own in the middle of the night.

mamoru is asleep on the couch in front of the crystal BECAUSE OF COURSE HE IS aaaaand both kunzite and zoisite know his identity. kunzite was the last to get boxed up and shelved by beryl, so he's kind of been prepared for this. as soon as the crystal breaks enough that he can access the world outside it, he's got a sound-eating bubble around the outside of it so if neph and j are still screaming they won't be heard by anyone. zoisite doesn't care, he slaps both of them to get them to shut their mouths anyway.

(kunzite tiny smile)

they can hear kunzite because obviously kunzite controls the bubble. he says 'that's tuxedo kamen, also prince endymion, beloved of queen beryl. he's also the beloved of sailor moon, who is princess serenity of the moon kingdom as well as aggravatingly flighty. however-- queen beryl betrayed us all, so i don't think we need to make any sudden moves, do you?'

the guys exchange glances.

'no, but i think a better question is 'how are we here?' and possibly 'why is chiba sleeping so peacefully right there in front of us?'' says zoisite after a second, edging away from nephrite. 

'i know i got punished for failing,' says jadeite, 'and it was supposed to be eternal, but i'm in some rando apar-- okay are you /sure/ he's tuxedo kamen because i thought tuxedo kamen was taller?'

'he's tuxedo kamen,' says zoisite, rolling his eyes and perching in midair, one leg crossed over the other. 'you're just shorter than you think you are.'

nephrite, 'says the skipper doll'

zoisite, 'you're the expert on dolls'

kunzite, 'GENTLEMEN.'

mamoru stirs; kunzite hasn't let the bubble drop but the guy's stirring anyway. they all look at him. he kicks the blanket off. there's an array of slow-dawning 'wtf' expressions.

zoisite, '...does he look... older to you?'

nephrite, squinting. '...yeah. but still not as old as kunzite.'

jadeite hurriedly, 'does it really matter? shouldn't we get out of here? if he's sailor moon's squeeze and queen beryl wants him, shouldn't we like, steal him and-- oh right we're not working for her anymore-- wait, so what *are* we doing?'

kunzite dryly, 'you missed it. it worked out poorly for everyone involved.' then he falls silent and stares at the sleeping guy on the couch some more. eventually, a little past when the uncomfortable shifting of the other guys should have already made them start sniping at each other again but for some reason hasn't, kunzite says, 'we need to find out what happened while we were ... trapped. you're all, of course, free to leave. no one is holding you anymore.'

more uncomfortable shifting. they can't see the small smile on kunzite's face.

'i'm not leaving you, kunzite-sama.'

'if you're not working for her, i'd rather stick around.'

'i SUPPOSE you'll PROBABLY need my help, and i'd rather not haunt that girl's life any more than i already did...'

'then it's settled. nephrite, go find out if your holdings are still yours. we'll need one that you don't mind being wrecked, because the senshi will probably find him--'

'why don't we just stay here?' asks nephrite mildly irritably.

'because this is his apartment,' says zoisite with distaste. 'they'll probably be here in the morning.'

'*why are we in his apartment*?' asks jadeite desperately.

kunzite sighs, drops the bubble, steals a bunch of energy from mamoru, T W I T C H E S, then hauls him up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 'i'm taking him to your mansion, nephrite.'

boy will they be surprised when the mansion's totally not even there anymore

MORNING RESCUUUUUE CONBENIE

like he's 27 or sth idk and he's getting kidnapped XD  
and the reason why he and usagi are not living together is:  
he doesn't want to also live with usagi's 8 wives  
they dont have a giant palace yet kthx

and his wife and all 8 of her wives are gonna be like 'this is why you need to get over yourself'  
which also lmfao god what if 9 senshi storm in on the guys eventually?

zoi 'i'd make a rabbits joke but' pointed look at usagi

okay, fuckit, this is me and it's already an ensemble, so go big or go home

the guys, discovering that nephrite's mansion is, in point of fact, no longer there, and that all of masato sanjouin's holdings have reverted to the company that thrived with him and then without him and then sold out to a bigger company so he's got nada, take over an abandoned half-rekt convenience store and literally tie poor mamoru up with bike chains

their operation is totally ratchet

he gets put on the bottom shelf of a snack island while they discuss options

CUT TO APARTMENT GIRLS

back at his apartment, usagi lets herself in and yo the giant crystal is so much crystal dust and mamoru is not there and she doesn't scream because she's 24 years old and you know what she is so done with this shit

usagi's like 'nope'

she mass-texts the girls with 'so the crystal broke and the apartment's empty, who's surprised'  
vee texts back 'shit lol ok don't tell the outers'

mako, ami, rei. 'brt'

mako brings snax, ami brings equipment, rei brings her temper, vee brings weapons, and they find usagi angrily eating all of mamoru's ice cream while glaring at the crystal shards and sitting on mamoru's blanket on the floor which is on top of the broken crystal and therefore proof that no, he did not break his word

then they hear a helicopter

accusations briefly fly, 'okay WHO TOLD THE OUTERS'

no one told the outers, or at least no one is admitting to it

when they pile in from the balcony because ofc they jumped down from the roof to the balcony in henshin because why come in the door when you can be dramatic and come in from the 47th floor balcony or whatever, vee bursts out with, 'who told you guys!' and michiru clears her throat and holds up her mirror

there is sulking but also business and snacks and more eating of what is in mamoru's kitchen

michiru 'btw he looks like he's on the bottom shelf of an empty snack aisle and it's kind of dark'

hotaru already has her phone out and is googling 'empty stores in tokyo' and ami is tracking teleport energy traces and they compare notes and setsuna shuts haruka up and asks politely for an explanation of wtf is going on

CUT TO CONBENIE

mamoru is awake and faking unconsciousness on the bottom shelf, kunzite only took enough energy as appropriate to keep season one mamoru knocked out and the dude is at early kendy powerlevels now

he is getting a couple of uncomfortable cramps in his shoulders and neck and side but doesn't dare fix them with his power because kunzite would notice for sure, and he is listening and trying to get his phone out of his pocket with his arms behind his back without actually -- oh nm i forgot about phone tracking shit ofc they'd have mamoru's phone trackable, so that's what ami's doing while hotaru is googling, fuck teleport signatures that's impractical when easy technological options exist-- without actually looking like he's moving

jadeite, 'okay somehow it's 2019 and you'll never believe who's president of the united states??'

nephrite, 'who cares, how is it 2019, chiba doesn't look that old'

zoisite, 'don't be ridiculous it can't have been the better part of thirty years'

kunzite, 'let's operate under the assumption that it has, zoisite please don't set anything on fire, you're still pretty'

zoisite begins to sulk but then preens, crisis averted

jadeite, looking up from mamoru's phone, 'it's totally 2019 this is a phone but it's also a pocket computer with traffic maps and news and shit? we're in the future this is kind of awesome'

mamoru, mentally cursing

CUT TO SENSHI

ami, 'his phone's in use!!'

vee and haruka 'LET'S GO!'

ami, 'i actually bugged his phone'

usagi, 'YOU WHAT'

vee, suddenly leaning in 'TELL ME MORE'

ami, 'i shut it off when they're having sex, for christ's sake minako'

michiru, giggling

rei, annoyed, 'put it on speaker for the rest of the class'

senshi begin to avidly listen to the conversation as ami's bug activates

mako 'can't we do this from closer to the conbenie'

vee, 'oh yeah. but we're taking the rooftops not the damn helicopter'

haruka sulks

off they all go


	3. Chapter 3

CONBENIE AND GIRLS JOIN

the senshi are listening in via ami's bug

and the conversation hasn't gotten any smarter in the intervening time.

...

jadeite, 'what the hell is google'

zoisite, 'idk open it? how do you open it? there's no mouse'

jadeite, 'because you never watched star trek. jfc. you touch it.' pause 'NO DON'T TOUCH IT I DONT KNOW WHAT THAT IS'

zoisite 'oh who's it calling?'

(usagi's phone rings)

jadeite 'SHUT IT OFF SHUT IT OFF'

(usagi's phone stops ringing. at this point the girls are trying not to laugh.)

nephrite, 'give me that. i had a carphone.'

jadeite 'this is as similar to a carphone as a mnemonic memory circuit is to stone knives and bearskins'

zoisite 'literally no one knows what you're talking about'

kunzite about to say something

mamoru 'he's talking about star trek. look, i can't feel my hands and i'm getting a wicked cramp in my neck and a worse one in my shoulder... ish... side. i'm going to fix it. please don't think i'm attacking you. given the headache i have i'm assuming one of you jackasses took my energy. please don't do that either.'

there's an ominous silence over the phone

jadeite's voice almost a whisper, 'yooooooooo'

zoisite 'now we're definitely not untying you.'

mamoru 'untie me this is awkward'

nephrite 'i am not agreeing with zoisite, for the record, when i say we're not untying you. i came to that conclusion independently.'

mamoru 'untie me what the hell did you use, gas siphons?'

jadeite, helpfully, 'bike chains'

mamoru 'what the hell kind of rinky-dink goat rodeo operation are you even running? is this a conbenie? seriously?'

nephrite and zoisite talking over each other but it sounds more or less like kunzite what the hell are you doing

kunzite, dryly, 'untying him. out of the four of us, i'm the one who's actually worked with him. the worst he's going to do is rescue the senshi from his own trap.'

mamoru, 'look, i was seventeen, give me a break'

zoisite, 'eyoooooo'

mamoru, 'omg shut up you called me mamoru-chan could you not hit on me at the same time as being evil for like five seconds'

kunzite, 'what were we doing in your living room?'

jadeite, sotto voce, 'damn, right to the point'

zoisite, sotto voce, 'yeah he doesn't get distracted like SOME PEOPLE'

nephrite, sotto voce, 'look in the goddamn mirror. and not to check your hair.'

mamoru, determinedly, over all this nonsense, 'you were under the throne room at d-point, encased in crystal. from what i hear it wasn't too far from where i died--'

the senshi can TELL how fidgety and uncomfortable that silence is

zoisite, uncomfortably, 'okay but that was in 1992 and it's 2019?'

mamoru, 'and for you it's been like five minutes, so i'm begging you, knock it off at least until you get purified'

nephrite, 'about that. i remember it hurting. and who says we want to get moon-whammied anyway?'

mamoru, 'do you want to know how you ended up in my living room or not'

kunzite, 'please continue.'

there's another brief silence; the senshi are exchanging glances like 'dude even nephrite is listening to kunzite wtf are they getting better?' and the shitennou are exchanging glances like 'this is weird and i feel weird'

mamoru, 'the senshi went to d-point yesterday while i was at work--' there's such an edge of irritation in his voice that there's a certain amount of cringing and huffiness on the roof of the conbenie '--to make sure nothing was wiggling around being gross and anathema to life. and they found you guys. and someone did something and the place started collapsing so they teleported you out and into my living room because apparently it was the only place you wouldn't be in the way in a giant block of crystal? the logic is hazy. you were in the way.'

kunzite, 'why did they rescue us? they spent enough time trying to kill us.'

mamoru, 'because they don't kill for fun and they have phenomenal godlike powers. because they knew i missed you. because they missed you. because the dark kingdom wasn't your fault. because you had no resistance to beryl.'

silence.

jadeite, small voice, 'what are you talking about?'

mamoru, 'you're my guardians. or you were, anyway.'

kunzite, 'none of us remembers anything of the sort.'

mamoru, 'you mean like i didn't remember being mamoru while beryl had me?'

uncomfortable silence.

mamoru, 'anyway, whichever one of you took my energy, how did that feel?'

kunzite, forcefully, 'you said the senshi were in the throne room, and implied we were the only occupants.'

mamoru, kindly, 'the dark kingdom is gone. beryl is gone. metalia is gone. that the ginzuishou didn't destroy you-- for which i am grateful, and over which i was delighted until i woke up on the bottom shelf of a snack island tied up in bike chains-- says a lot in favor of you still being yourselves, real people, instead of really powerful youma. your behavior leaves something to be desired, but i can get that you're behind the times.'

there's a thump on the roof when usagi actually falls over in an effort to keep minako from putting her hand over usagi's mouth because she looked like she was about to burst out laughing, and even ami's covering her face, shoulders shaking. setsuna's smiling heavenward, michiru's amused, haruka's smirking, hotaru looks mildly worried, rei's rolling her eyes, mako's biting her nails.

but there's a thump on the roof.

four of the five guys inside look up.

mamoru, 'don't worry. i know sailor moon is up there, the rest of the senshi probably are, too--'

venus stops laughing.

'--and they're probably eavesdropping.'

ami stops laughing.

'i'm pretty sure i'm usually bugged and have a tracker on me. i used to get kidnapped a lot.'

ami pales.

zoisite, definitely trying to sound snide and missing the mark by about seven leagues, 'used to? what do you think you are now?'

kunzite, 'our guest.'

mamoru, 'kind of hungry actually.'

jadeite, 'i'll go rifle through the store room and see if there's any twinkies.'

mamoru, 'not that hungry.'

nephrite, indignant, 'how can you be so calm about having no privacy?'

mamoru, 'welcome to 2019.'

rei, on the roof, approvingly, 'shots fired. not sure at who. don't care.'

vee, 'yeah that was pretty good. kind of bruce willis.'

usagi, :heart_eyes:

mako, 'shh!'

zoisite, 'what were you planning on doing with us, really? do you seriously expect us to believe the senshi were going to free us? you were alone.'

mamoru, 'they wanted to avoid fighting when they were already tired and i was cranky and overwhelmed, so they were going to let you out tomorrow and be intimidating and try and get you to not fight, and if that didn't work, just wale on you until usa could moonbeam you into not having dark energy in you.'

nephrite, 'really? REALLY? they really thought they could beat all four of us tog--'

jadeite hiss-whisper, 'they beat metalia and it's 2019?'

nephrite mutter, 'shit. yeah. okay.'

mamoru, 'actually everyone else died on the way. usagi beat metalia herself then brought us back to life.'

there's a LOUD thump on the roof, and the sound of usagi screeching in indignation

the roof caves in on the other side of the conbenie and senshi literally pile into the place

shitennou, stare

mamoru looks resigned

usagi screeches from under a pile of senshi and seriously expired snax, 'I WASN'T ALONE EVERYBODY'S GHOSTS WERE HELPING ME'

mamoru patiently, 'think about what you just said.'

after a second, usagi 'I WASN'T EMOTIONALLY OR MOTIVATIONALLY ALONE'

mamoru, 'fair'

nephrite sees mako getting up and immediately just has the face of a guy who has shut up for the foreseeable future

zoisite sees ami, sees vee looking at kunzite, sees kunzite looking at vee, gets confused and alarmed, and remoras himself to kunzite

jadeite sees rei and immediately says 'YOU RAN ME OVER WITH A PLANE'

rei retorts, 'you were dating a youma!'

jadeite, 'I WAS NOT DATING HER SHE HAD AN UNHEALTHY FIXATION ON ME AND IT GOT HER KILLED AND I FELT GUILTY ABOUT IT'

and then zoisite pterodactyl-shrieks 'THERE ARE MORE OF YOU WHY ARE THERE MORE OF YOU'

setsuna, 'there are more than four planets and earth's moon'

zoisite, 'OH YEAH WHICH PLANET ARE YOU'

setsuna, primly, 'pluto'

jadeite, distracted suddenly, 'the google says pluto is a dwarf planet. you're too tall.'

haruka, 'that's not a healthy observation to make when you're on the wrong end of a lot of supercharged attacks.'

zoisite, 'do they always come with bubblegum sleeves?'

usagi yelling 'DON'T KILL THEM EVEN IF IT'S REALLY TEMPTING'

hotaru mumbles, 'google doesn't have a definite article, it's a proper noun'

michiru, 'honestly, we're all adults. even hotaru--'

hotaru glares

'--so can't we discuss this like civilized people?'

mamoru, hurriedly, 'at your place. my place is big but yours is bigger'

haruka, 'did someone record that?'

minako with her hands over her mouth

kunzite, 'that seems like a terrible idea, but it appears there aren't many options open to us right now'

haruka, 'too fucking right'

mako, 'ENOUGH'

everyone stares at mako, who had up until then been in basically eye-lock with nephrite

mako, 'we'll meet you there, michiru, haruka. if that's okay with you.'

michiru murmurs assent, haruka glowers.

mako, 'you too, sec-chan, hotaru-chan'

setsuna, smiling slightly, is already on her way out the door. hotaru grumps and leaps up through the hole in the roof. haruka and michiru leave with only slightly tarnished elegance.

this leaves the inners (including usagi and mamoru) staring at the shitennou, and vice versa

END OF EPISODE

ROLL CREDITS and cape porn  
"eien dake ga futari wo kakeru" because it's the best ED of SMC


	4. Chapter 4

EPISODE 2: conbenie BS, amirite

literally all the shitennou glance at mamoru, then the inners, then the places where the outers left, then think 'no wonder you missed us' but none of them is dumb enough to say it out loud in front of any of the girls

usagi, quietly, 'the only way purification hurts is if you resist it. do you really want to resist it? beryl betrayed you. metalia would have destroyed you along with the earth, and then everything else. the dark kingdom is gone. mamo-chan is your prince. endymion. endymion is your prince, you loved him once, and he loves you still. there's a place for you in this world, if you want it.'

vee, 'she was using you. i don't know how she got her hands on your again, if you were reborn like we were-- and if you weren't-- if you were all sealed for so long, with beryl and metalia-- then i'm sorry. the prince and princess were dead. we were all dying. queen serenity had no time to double-check--'

rei, 'you betrayed us. you betrayed your prince. you suffered for it. are you sorry? do you know how wrong you were, what a mistake you made? did you even make a decision, or was it just that the pressure from metalia was too much, and we weren't vigilant enough to catch it in you before everything went to hell?'

ami, 'i literally already have new IDs set up for you if you don't remember who you were in this life, or if you weren't born in this life. i was up until four in the morning setting it up. while, you know, you were kidnapping mamoru.'

mamoru, 'it wasn't kidnapping if i would have gone with them if they asked.'

zoisite, 'it doesn't make it not kidnapping if you're being an idiot.'

ami, severely, 'you're missing the point. the point is that usagi-chan is right, you have a place here. in many many ways, you already have a place here.'

mako, 'please? please, stay with us. it's not a trap.' she's stepping closer to neph, her hands down at her sides, open, but not up because she knows it looks like it could be an attack if they were up. and he doesn't stop her. he's just watching her, with this look, he's trying to remember so hard and it looks like it hurts and he's totally raw to the point that the other guys are just staring at him because where did his mask go?

mako reaches, finally, when she's right in his space, and puts her hands over his. 'please?'

this is no little girl whose feelings he's trying to take advantage of, but he can read the belief in her eyes just like he had in naru's, not long ago for him at all, but so many years ago for the other girls-- and mako doesn't even know.

he turns his hand over in both of hers, and he can't stop looking at her upturned face, full of hope. he can't stop until he does, and he looks away, closing his eyes. 'you don't know. talk to moon about what i did, and see if you still want me to stay.' he pulls his hand out of hers and steps back, turning away.

'well, do you forgive me for killing you? i mean especially since you're not dead,' says zoisite, completely ignoring all the serious drama in favor of ego and mockery.

'not really,' mutters nephrite.

mako, totally bereft, and rei looks like she's about to come over and punch a fire hole through him, and it's vee who stops her. 'they're guys. they brood. we should let them brood for a while. get it out of their systems. i'd say they can hang out on the outers' roof but they might steal the helicopter and go brood in hokkaido or something and it's too soon for skiing so i don't want to chase them there. so hey, guys, you can hang out on mamoru's roof and brood there, okay? mamoru, you okay babysitting them while we PICK UP MAKO-CHAN'S SHATTERED HEART AND GLUE IT TOGETHER and also regroup? or are you going to let them kidnap you to nicaragua or something?'

mamoru, 'jfc i was asleep'

minako, 'point stands'

usagi pouts at him

mamoru sighs through his teeth, 'i will drink all the coffee in the world and stay awake and make sure they don't kidnap me and if they try i'll go kingface at them, i mean, even i can probably stop them on my own at this point'

minako, 'fair'

venus is Not Looking At Kunzite

in fact none of the guys or girls are making eye contact anymore except that mamoru's safe generally for the girls to look at so they do

but the guys aren't looking at him either

mamoru, 'so you've got the roof and the run of my apartment, because pretty sure i can't trust you guys not to mesmerize people and take their stuff if you want it? because you're being really aggravating. if you leave while i am at work i will know. and i have to go to work. what time is it? jadeite give me my phone.'

jadeite ... hands it over >:C

mamoru, 'great. i literally have 20 minutes to get home, eat, shower, and get to the hospital.'

rei, 'that doesn't sound like babysitting. that sounds like neglect.'

ami, 'take the rooftops. i'll make sure they get back to your place.'

kunzite, 'or we could teleport you.' grab mamoru, teleport

literally everyone left in the conbenie throws up their hands

ami, 'i'll text the outers and let them know we're all just going to mamoru's apartment after all and we'll keep them filled in'

vee, 'lol that'll go over well'

mako, 'what an idiot why did he even'

zoi, 'i'm sure he's got some plan'

rei, 'some stupid plan. did you miss where mamoru said he'd go kingface on you guys if you messed around?'

jadeite, 'what did that even mean?'

usagi, absently while looking over ami's shoulder, not even remotely worried, 'he grew up like the rest of us. crown princes that live to grow up eventually become kings.'

nephrite, 'and?'

usagi glances up, 'and he can actually wipe the floor with all of you at once, he just really doesn't want to.'

zoisite, 'oh i'll give a speech from a tree and throw a rose guy, wipe the floor with us? you said he doesn't want to. HE said he'd've just gone with us if we asked. sounds like he didn't get any smarter. i don't think there's gonna be any mopping unless it's his hair getting dirty suds in it.'

jadeite, sotto voce, 'i think that got away from you a bit.'

zoisite, sotto voce, 'shut up.'

nephrite, 'is he really that powerful? i mean kunzite drained his energy and it took him a while to wake up, and then he was all demanding we untie him. i don't even know why kunzite actually humored him.'

ami's phone bings, and she triumphantly shows it to vee.

minako reads aloud, 'OK w/e, yell if they accidentally release chaos or sth and you need a hand mopping up'

mako, impressed. 'how did they know we were talking about mopping?'

rei, gravely, 'it's inherent to this entire situation. i mean it's even how it started. ami mopped the floor they were in.'

usagi, 'he's not scared or anything, let's just go back to his place. mako come with me let's get more ice cream on the way.'

jadeite, 'can i help?'

zoisite, 'and leave me with nephrite, mars, and mercury? i'm coming too.'

mako, 'suck it up. you can, i don't know, go through mamoru's bathroom and use up all his fancy hair soap.'

zoisite immediately intrigued. 'he has fancy shampoo?'

ami, 'lots. let's go.'

usagi, 'you coming with us or going with them, mina-p?'

minako, slow smile. 'i'm gathering a cat and going hunting.'

CUTSCENE

(cutscene:  
jadeite so excited by all the current batch of weird ice cream flavors  
'this one is BLACK! kunzite would LOVE it!'  
'mamo-chan says it's not good to eat too much of, because it's got activated charcoal in it and that makes medicine not work.'  
'i don't think kunzite takes medicine.'  
'oh then stock up!'  
little do they know lithium comes from kunzite mainly  
end cutscene)

CUT TO MAMOKUNZ

meanwhile, kunzite and the mamoru he has stolen so cleverly! 

obviously they do not go to the apartment. people were talking way too much and they were going to keep talking way too much and mamoru was going to leave and kunzite needs to get to the-- he needs to figure this out. he had Feelings that didn't involve being annoyed or being affectionate toward zoisite, and that's unacceptable, and that energy-- the taste of that energy--

he drops mamoru on the floor-- if it's a floor-- in the pitch dark. 

he can see mamoru looking at nothing, and he crosses his arms and watches the guy sit up. 

mamoru, 'well that's one way of doing it, i guess. are you going to get me back in time for my hospital shift? because i wasn't kidding. the er is always way too understaffed and if someone doesn't show up, people who have already been working twelve hours need to stay longer, and--'

kunzite, 'stop.'

mamoru stops, dropping his hands to his lap and looking blindly toward kunzite's voice.

kunzite, 'your energy. what is it?'

mamoru answers, 'do you want to see?'

kunzite, 'no, i want you to use words and answer me.'

mamoru, 'it's the planet that metalia was trying to destroy.'

kunzite's silent for a second. then, 'if you're implying you're a senshi like the sailors, then how was beryl able to control you?'

mamoru, kindly, 'if she had honestly been controlling me, do you think i would have annoyed you so much?' 

kunzite's about to say something, but mamoru keeps going, 'i nearly died, in that room where usagi transformed into her past self for the first time. i think maybe i did, a little bit. when i woke up, i wasn't ... myself. there were tasks i had, there was a queen to please who said she loved me and that i loved her back, and i had no reason to disbelieve. it's just that there was always something i was trying to remember, and whenever i was faced with something that supported it and i was supposed to act against what i felt was right, i sabotaged it. i was trying to remember usagi and the other senshi. i was trying to remember why i cared about *you*. i was trying to remember why the name endymion wasn't supposed to be spoken the way it was, i was trying to remember what i was prince of, because i knew it wasn't meant to be a cavern underground filled with demons. she didn't control me, she only made me forget the surface of my life. but then sailor moon purified me, and i would have been myself again--'

kunzite doesn't move, doesn't make a sound, and mamoru looks annoyed in the dark. he lifts a hand and it glows, and he can see kunzite, and kunzite makes a monumental effort not to flinch away from the color of the light, from the light itself. 

'there you are,' says mamoru. 'i would have been myself again, but no, you came and took me back. and i don't remember anything after that until usagi had to kill me in the throne room in front of beryl, because apparently i was trying to kill *her*. for real. and she's my wife now, so i have to believe it wasn't actually me doing that. i think that i was vulnerable enough at that point, injured enough, drained of myself and my own power enough, that metalia was able to fill my body with dark energy and use it like a puppet. i mean that's not the only time that happened, either.'

despite himself, kunzite's making a face of extreme distaste. 

mamoru, 'i know. i don't think *that* can be done to me again, but i didn't think so before the last time either, so i can't rule it out.'

'so you're the senshi of earth,' kunzite says flatly, like, i roll to disbelieve despite the mounting evidence being laid before me.

'yes. where are we? i know it's not on earth. it's not even in space. it's making me feel weirdly dissociated.'

'a pocket dimension i made a few ye--' kunzite starts, then stops himself short, grimacing. 'why is your energy-- it's different from that of the girls. i can operate under the assumption that you're a senshi, but your energy is still different from theirs.'

'they're all different from each other, but i bet they're similar to you because they're all sort of... alien? but mine... it's what you're supposed to be using, too,' mamoru says earnestly, falling back into the real, falling back into his honest feelings, his hope and his truth, because kunzite seems to be listening to him. 'it tastes like home, doesn't it? it tastes like going home.'

the gall. this man-- for kunzite was forced to admit that mamoru chiba was no longer the boy he'd faced down with zoisite, the boy he'd stolen for beryl at the cost of zoisite's life, the boy who plagued his final months-- this man assumed too much. (a small voice in the back of his mind insists: 'he doesn't assume. he knows.' the dark energy rattling around in kunzite's soul drowns it out, feeds his anger. feeds it past reason, far past where kunzite lets it go if he's at all paying attention, but--)

(--but the more he wants something, needs something, that's actually his and actually right, the more the dark kingdom fights to keep it away from him.)

his face turns stony and he lifts a hand and puts out mamoru's light. he encases chiba in darkness: a darkness that eats light, eats sound, eats heat, and kunzite doesn't have to look at the man, doesn't have to hear him. he pulls at that energy. he pulls and pulls, and it seems neverending, and long past when chiba should have frozen to death, he's still draining him--

\--and then abruptly, the flow of energy stops.

so does kunzite's heart, for a split second. he sees a sword through a chest, and it feels like a sword through his own, and he drops the bubble from around the pajama-clad resident doctor. he knows what he'll see: a frozen corpse and the end of his own life at the hands of the senshi.


	5. Chapter 5

CUT TO OUTERS PENTHOUSE

where hotaru is literally doing michiru's nails and setsuna is typing something heavily academic up, and haruka is pacing back and forth in front of the windows. 'who the hell are they, anyway?'

setsuna, mildly, 'endymion's former guard.'

haruka, 'they looked like a bunch of minibosses.'

setsuna, 'well, they were. when the inner senshi were fourteen.'

haruka, 'they're coddling a bunch of bad guys.'

michiru, 'we weren't very nice when we first met them either. nor during the galaxia fiasco.'

hotaru stills.

setsuna says even more mildly, 'they're also the girls' former boyfriends from the silver millennium.'

both michiru and haruka stop and turn and stare at setsuna.

hotaru after a second, 'weird flex but ok.'

setsuna, 'well I don't think they're that bad-looking.'

cue eyerolling and back to what they were all doing.

CUT TO ICE CREAM PARTY

the ice cream store, and jadeite has like, one of every flavor and a bunch of black ice cream for kunzite because i stg jadeite is twee af sometimes. he and usagi and mako, who have also added a shit-ton to the cart, are at the register.

'you're paying, right?' usagi asks jadeite with wide, innocent eyes.

jadeite pauses. he almost says 'sure!' and then remembers what mamoru said about not mesmerizing people. 'uhh...'

mako stops being able to stifle her laughter, and hip-bumps usagi, who gigglefits and takes out mamoru's credit card because of course she does. 'no worries,' she says, 'mamo-chan is loaded.'

'... of course he is,' says jadeite, sighing.

CUT TO MAMORU'S FLAT

zoisite is still in the bathroom. it's been like forty five minutes. 'you're gonna be a giant prune,' rei calls through the door.

'bold of you to assume i'm in the water,' zoisite's voice floats back with the distinct sound of an 'ara~' in its inflection.

'ugh!' rei says and storms off to glare at ami and nephrite, who are actually nerding out at each other over star charts and trying to put dates on the silver millennium and golden kingdom, neither of which nephrite actually remembers, so ami keeps filling him in on whatever stuff she knows about and telling him mamoru can tell him more because really they didn't know that much about earth.

she's about to tell them off irritably when jadeite, usagi, and makoto come in with way too much ice cream that jadeite's keeping frozen with magic ice, and ofc he's powering it with dark energy, so rei just goes 'UGH!!' again and stalks off to torrent some takarazuka.

'was it something i didn't say?' asks jadeite, baffled and a little lost-puppy.

'nah,' says mako, 'she's rei and she doesn't want to be here right now. but we finished up at the shrine this morning before finding out mamoru was gone, so at least she doesn't have a super valid reason to be pissy. don't worry about it.'

'i'm not worried. she ran me over with a plane,' jadeite says, sticking out his chin and huffing off into the kitchen to shove ice cream in the freezer.

zoisite swans out just in time for ice cream, ofc. his hair is shinier than usual.

usagi... usagi goes to eat ice cream on the balcony, leaning on the railing and looking at tokyo tower and thinking about mamoru and a different tower, a long time ago, and an elevator, and the redheaded boy who just used up mamo-chan's shampoo, and the white-haired man who stole mamo-chan again. 'bad habits,' she murmurs, then takes a while licking the ice cream off her spoon before taking another bite.

jadeite comes back out of the kitchen with his own ice cream, avoids rei, skirts mako (and in so doing avoids nephrite and ami too because guess where mako is headed) and heads for the balcony, then sees usagi there making out with her spoon.

he pauses.

he wibbles, then finally decides not to go out there.

just as he's turning away, usagi glances halfway back over her shoulder and says with her spoon in her mouth, 'you weren't mean, really. except when you said shit you probably didn't actually mean at all. you can come out here-- it's where mamo-chan hides when there's too much personality in his living room but he can't go in his room and lock the door.'

jadeite comes out, glancing behind him, then shifts to one side so that his back's to the outside wall of the building instead of the glass doors. he prods his still-solid ice cream with his own spoon, then looks at usagi without lifting his head, just his eyes. 'really? the guy who stands on tall things and makes speeches in his own magically-generated spotlight? he has a problem with too much personality in his living room?'

'that's not actually being social,' usagi says, looking back out over the city. 'that's a one-way performance, and he has a mask on. he hides behind it. he's good at people because he's watched them his whole life, not because he's just... good at people.' she looks at jadeite again, no accusation, no real scrutiny. 'you are, though, aren't you? all through the store, you were trying to make me and mako-chan laugh, you wanted us to smile. even when you were running schemes and trying to steal life energy or whatever, you were better at the people part of the operation than the actually being evil part, weren't you?'

jadeite looks away, making a face, blushing to the roots of his blond hair. 'i just came out here to have a good time and honestly i'm feeling so attacked right now.'

'still dated, but better.'

mamoru's gonna have a hard time getting the googlephone back from jadeite at this point

CUT TO VEE & ARTY

artemis, on vee's shoulder, 'you know you're not gonna find him like this'

vee, crouched on a rooftop like a goblin, basically deepthroating an ice pop which is dripping over the edge of the roof, 'you reckon?'

artemis, 'did you forget how gay he and zoisite are?'

vee, 'thats bi erasure'

artemis, 'besides wherever he is he's probably not like watching you 100% of the time i mean he's got mamoru, he's probably busy? you know?'

vee, 'if he's not watching me 100% of the time in some way then he's not as married to aesthetics as he used to be. which is implausible.'

artemis, 'are you admitting zoisite is pretty but not admitting zoisite is prettier than you?'

vee, 'blasphemy even to suggest he's prettier than the goddess of beauty' then she bites the ice pop

artemis, 'oh god' *looks away*

CUT TO MAMOKUNZ

that's not a corpse. that's a dude in his PJs looking unimpressed.

kunzite, gobsmacked, staring in the dark because he does that

mamoru, making a light with his hand again, now knows where to glare properly instead of off to the left a bit

kunzite, 'how are you not dead. or even unconscious. i didn't even come close to draining you dry last time! and you were out!'

mamoru, annoyed, 'the question you should be asking is 'what point did you just make because i know you made a point but i'm too obsessed with figuring out how you did thing' which means you're not going to ask. which means i'm going to tell you because i'm getting really tired of arguing.'

kunzite, >:C

mamoru, 'i am earth. you're not metalia. you don't have metalia backing you. you can't drain me dry. i was asleep and i had just got back from a 24-hour shift and i have another one, probably longer, that you're making me miss. of COURSE i was out. and of COURSE you just gave me another big headache. it's like brainfreeze from ice cream too fast.'

kunzite, '...fair'

mamoru, 'i'm sorry you're overwhelmed. it gets to me too.'

kunzite, 'they're already following your lead.'

mamoru, '...oh.' kunzite can see his expression shift to one of an absolutely horrifyingly honest compassion. this just irritates kunzite more.

mamoru, 'come here. the dark energy you're carrying literally feels like swimming in wasps and hate but i legit don't care? come here. please?'

kunzite, >:C

mamoru gets up. mamoru starts walking on the nothing he's been standing or sitting or floating on, who knows, but if it wasn't before then it's deffo solid now

he walks to kunzite and reaches, and kunzite doesn't move away, at least, or knock his hand away, or anything

and so carefully, mamoru puts his bare hand on the side of kunzite's face

it's different this time. it's different from stealing his energy, it's different from anything else he remembers at all

the only thing that's the same is the taste of the energy that mamoru is giving to him this time.

so very different is the fact that he can feel what mamoru is feeling, and something in his soul is screaming and crying and clutching at the familiarity of that. mamoru loves. loves without exception, without restraint, without reserve. loves him. it's true and it tastes true and it feeds that screaming crying clutching piece of soul buried in the darkness that beryl and metalia left for him.

mamoru, very softly, 'there you are. will you let me pull you out?'

kunzite can't answer. mamoru can see the war waging, can see the dark energy trying to shred at the rosy heart of kunzite's inky crystal, trying to eject the golden thread that ties it to mamoru, and can see the shrieking fight for survival of that rosy-aureate dawn deep inside kunzite's heart of hearts as the legacy of the dark kingdom tries to strangle it.

but kunzite can't answer.

mamoru, 'forgive me.' he's thinking: you don't wait for a drowning person to say 'i consent to rescue'

he floods that tenuous golden thread with power, feeds it alarmingly strong and fast to the pink-gold core of kunzite's being, fiercely shoving aside that which he can't purify. if he can give the real kunzite that power fast enough, it might overtake the dark energy's ability to convert it--

\--and he knows he's doing it right, that it's working, when kunzite grabs his wrist and stops thinking entirely, keeps mamoru's hand pressed to his face, and teleports them both out of the pocket dimension.


	6. Chapter 6

CUT TO VEE & ARTY

vee, trudging back to headquarters, which right now is mamoru's apartment instead of the base under the crown because dude luna's got that covered and is cranky about it and it's the most likely place for mamoru and kunzite to reappear and besides artemis can shed more effectively on mamoru's actual tuxedo (as opposed to his henshin one(s)) than luna can

'what the fuck, it's oh-god-thirty in the morning and mamoru's still out with him? they better not be making out'

artemis, 'they're not making out'

vee, 'how do you know? i mean sure he was staring at me while zoisite tried to groom him or whatever he thought he was doing, but he stole mamoru'

artemis, 'are you seriously telling me you wish he had kidnapped you instead?'

vee, 'it would be pretty hot. i'd tie him up and remind him of what venusian love is like'

artemis, 'more things i can never un-hear.'

vee, 'you can leave any time'

artemis, 'and let you get in trouble without me? boring'

vee, finally looking happier

CUT TO MAMORU'S APT

we're at the apartment again because basically the outers at this point are out of the story unless it's funny again, they're just like 'it's an internal inners issue let them sort it out we're doing our nails and/or fixing cars'

'in the apartment i mean it's big enough and we're rich enough to have an elevator just for haruka's cars, or probably even the helicopter??'

anyway

jadeite and usagi are sprawled on mamoru's couch with the even-bigger-than-in-classic big-screen tv mamoru's got these days which is basically a Fahrenheit 451 tv-wall and they're watching Say Anything with a hilarious dub

there are several empty ice cream containers around them both

rei is sitting determinedly in a corner, facing away from them and their 80s teen movie, reading her #takarazuka twitter feed because zoisite snagged the magazines she bought downstairs at the minimall and she actually had pity on him because of a shared interest

nephrite is taking up literally an entire couch by himself, food-coma'd from mako's stress-baking and still sporting blueberry stains on his uniform from where mako mashed some in out of spite when she got there (she has since gone home to water her plants and will be back later)

and ami is texting with luna because she thinks cats and iphone keyboards are the funniest thing in the world and when she's making luna text from afar luna can't see her sniggering

it's like seven hours later because time runs weeeeird in kunzite's pocket dimension, okay

vee flings open the balcony door dramatically, and it's still not as extra as the outers arriving that way, but only because she's not in an idol costume

'I FOUND...'

the movie pauses, everyone perks up except nephrite who's dead to the world

artemis, grooming his whiskers, '...nothing'

vee, glare at shoulder cat, fling him unceremoniously toward nephrite, who wakes up really fast

he's yelling when kunzite and mamoru teleport in and what mamoru's yelling is drowned out because nothing beats nephrite's bellow except for a desperate tuxedo kamen in the 90s translation of the manga yelling 'BUNNNNNNS!!!'

so let's back up a few because this is complicated visually and it's all happening at once

you've got the stage set

there's a big open space between where the couch-tv ensemble is, the kitchen, the couch and little table by the balcony doors with the great view of tokyo tower, and the hallwayish corner where rei and zoi are that leads to mamoru's bedroom

they inconveniently appear a little too close to the table by yelling neph and halloweened artemis yowl

so neph is bellowing, artemis is yowling, everyone is staring, kunzite is holding mamoru's gold-glowing hand to kunzite's own face by a deathgrip on the wrist, mamoru is looking a little unsteady and is yelling something which, as he and kunzite are toppling over the table onto neph and artemis is rocketing across the room to sink his claws into jadeite because neph just flung him again, turns out to be 'ESCALATE! ESCALATE!'

vee in a strangled voice, 'i don't have an aircraft carrier, a bridge, bruce willis, a truck, and a helicopter handy?'

mamoru is a little too occupied to realize his mistake

so it's rei who yells, 'SAILOR MOON! NOW!'

usagi is a) not in henshin yet, b) way too full of ice cream, c) thoroughly occupied by kickboxing being the sport of the future, and d) half-asleep on jadeite's shoulder and has no idea what's going on whatsoever, but she cannot resist the siren call of those important words. they are the trigger on the gun of lovebeam justice.

she steps on jadeite in her hurry to get up on the back of the couch so she can hold up her eternal brooch? does she still have a brooch? whatever, she has one for the purposes of this scene

jadeite therefore stops wailing about artemis claws because usagi's standing on his chest

usagi is screaming 'MOON PRIS-- MOON SILV-- SILVER THERA-- FUCKING MAKE UP OH MY GOD' and there's a lightshow and zoisite is W H E E Z I N G laughing

mako barrels into vee in the balcony door from outside, in henshin herself, because she was on her way back and YO THERE IS HENSHINING GOING ON? I CAN FLY I AM FLYING NOW except now she is falling and so is vee and vee starts laughing and can't stop because what the fuck

nephrite is seeing the lightshow and flipping the fuck out even more because YO WHO SAID SHE COULD PULL THAT ON HIM IN HIS SLEEP because everything is about him, he hasn't even noticed who just landed on him, he's wrestling away so he can hide from the lovebeams behind the couch

mamoru, 'IM DYING HERE WOULD YOU HURRY--'

'SILVER MOON HEALING EXTRALAAAAAAA-TION!'

everything is bathed in light

and that is how all four shitennou got the dark energy out of them at once, now they have to figure out how to navigate 2019 and maybe get some fake IDs or figure out who they are, but that's a story for some other time


	7. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this isn't an alternate ending, it's an alternate middle because we branched at the senshi leaving mamoru alone in the apartment with the supposedly totally frozen shitennou, then snapped back once kunzite got back to the others with mamoru.

Ellorgast:  
Abandoned convenience store is definitely funnier than I imagined, which is that they'd go to where Neph's mansion is supposed to be and just find an empty park. Neph like "what? It's easier to make the trees look spooky if they're actual trees"

smokingbomber:  
LMAO

Ellorgast:  
So they stand around this empty park in the middle of the night and just like, dump Mamoru on the ground while they try to figure out what to do

Ellorgast:  
Cue all your amazing dialogue re: The Google (notes about the threat being very low and allowing for so much comedy because the senshi and mamoru are at god-tier power levels)  
NO ONE mentions the wings  
the clunky feathered elephant in the room

smokingbomber:  
the senshi suspect the shitennou are properly intimidated. the shitennou assume they're from the costume shop.

Ellorgast:  
"did they just start gluing things to their costumes at some point?"

smokingbomber:  
YES  
So, park, yelling about 2019 ("that's not even a real year!"). At some point they notice Mamoru's just. Gone. From the place they dumped him. "Do you want to hear my opinion, or do you want to keep yelling about it?" they hear from above them. He's sitting in one of the trees, because in 2019 Tuxedo Kamen still knows how to get into weird high places. Kunzite automatically bubbles him because ugh this guy can't even keep him from darting around. Mamoru sits calmly in the bubble for a while but it's boring and they're still shouting and he can't even hear what they're saying. Jadeite notices the cracking sound first.

Ellorgast:  
Bright cracks spreading around Mamoru's hand the same way it was with the crystal. And he just drops down into the middle of them, still in PJs and bare feet. None of them looks like he knows whether to attack or teleport away to a nonexistent lair or just ask him what the heck that was. "Well?" he says. "Let's go."

smokingbomber:  
omg was he in his pajamas in the tree??? :joy:

Ellorgast:  
Of course pfft not even gonna waste a henshin on these losers

smokingbomber:  
yaaaaaaas

Ellorgast:  
Neph tries to hit him first because he's Neph and he asked for it but nothing he does connects. Jadeite tries to teleport behind him but somehow Mamoru just knows he's there and dodges out of the way. Zoi tries to hit him with flower petals but Mamoru just redirects them harmlessly away. It's not just that he's more powerful. He knows them, and he's anticipating their movements

smokingbomber:  
yesssssßßßßß

Ellorgast:  
Kunzite doesn't do a thing. He stands back and he watches this. And he notices what it is Mamoru's doing

smokingbomber:  
and he's doing it IN PAJAMAS

Ellorgast:  
YEP :smile:

smokingbomber:  
omg :joy:

Ellorgast:  
And that's what I got. Eventually they're calling time because this guy but now they're more inclined to believe he knows them because THIS GUY

smokingbomber:  
(i think he's also either legit older than kunzite now or he's the same age if you ignore '27 years ago')

Ellorgast:  
haha oh dang yes

smokingbomber:  
the senshi are just hurriedly handwaving all that like 'lol do we look genx to you NOPE'  
but the thing is, at that point he hasn't SAID he knows them beyond being tuxedo mask (or dendy)  
so they really are like wtf

Ellorgast:  
ahaha it's true

smokingbomber:  
except kunzite, who DID taste that energy

Ellorgast:  
and it tasted like candy

smokingbomber:  
candy and tears

Ellorgast:  
XD XD

smokingbomber:  
honey, attar, and bile~ (sorry that one's fades's)  
it tasted like more and like more would destroy him  
so the guys call time and they're panting and THIS GUY hasn't even broken a sweat  
and kunzite, in a low and really gut level 'oh fuck he mad' voice, 'who are you.'  
'what are you.'

Ellorgast:  
aw yessss

smokingbomber:  
mamoru, about to make a joke about forgetting his wallet so he doesn't have ID, thinks better of it. kunzite is rattled. if he's flippant now he'll lose an opportunity to get through. "you took my energy, didn't you? you could always do that, even before beryl. you know it, don't you? you can see where it comes from, too, if you look, but you're impatient. you can dish out the cryptic hints but you can't take them." a paise. "that's fair. you're full of dick energy right now. so--"  
kunzite drawing himself up to look scary

Ellorgast:  
dick energy

smokingbomber:  
mamoru puts his hand in front of his chest, palm flat against it. "you guys were after the wrong crystal. the silver one? that's the moon's. earth, we have our own."  
kunzite, eyes narrow. other guys, spectate. zoisite wishes for popcorn tbh, and neph wants whuskey, and jadeite is thinking longingly of weird pocky flavors and crystal pepsi.

Ellorgast:  
ahaha

smokingbomber:  
omg and like even though mamoru is awake, he's not tripping usagi's alarms because he's not worried or in pain and he hasn't henshined  
so anyway, the guys all stop thinking about what they would currently like to be ingesting because mamoru's flat hand cups, and he starts to draw it away from his chest, and the light is too bright to look at with dark-adapted eyes

smokingbomber:  
i like your park version better for reveals because i def dropped the ball and went straight exposition for the reveal and just had the guys roll to disbelieve XD  
the park one, mamoru gets to be casually badass in pjs, like omg???

smokingbomber:  
they're watching, squinting their peripheral vision, and jadeite is the first of them to be able to see it clearly, golden and bright, an opened crystal lotus flower, because jadeite is like sunlight when he's out of the darkness. zoisite is next, because he's all fire and brightness, and out of the dark that fire warms instead of sears, and the brightness is soft instead of throwing flaws into sharp relief. nephrite can look at it a long moment later, because although his stars are distant and their light is attenuated, they're a multitude of suns and they lead him to the light if clouds don't obscure them.  
kunzite tells himself that the reason he can't look is that his eyes are always dark-adapted, is that he can see in the starless eternal night of caves deep below the ground, can see in dimensions where light never existed.

Ellorgast:  
:two_hearts:

smokingbomber:  
:heart: XD  
he tells himself that that's why it hurts to look at. but mamoru is watching him.

smokingbomber:  
'do it,' he says firmly. 'take it. drain me dry.' his bare feet are planted solidly on the grassy earth, toes digging into the soil, and he looks unruffled and patient. 'it's not the ginzuishou. it won't burn you. i won't burn you.'  
kunzite finds himself in an awkward position. he's not angry, so he's less likely to make mistakes. he's very wary. he knows what mamoru was doing. he knows this is not a bluff, and that mamoru is calling his. he knows that this is set up to work to mamoru's benefit no matter what he does.  
he also knows that he both really wants to know what the hell is going on and what endymion actually is-- if the guy has this much power, how did beryl ever keep him?-- and why looking at him and that damned crystal makes him hurt so much...  
and really doesn't want to know any of it, or why he is wasting his time humoring this guy he should take the crystal and the shitennou and run, with that much raw power they could defeat the senshi and take the earth for themselves, what is he even doing  
as he's watching mamoru from the corner of his eye, he weighs these two opposing drives against each other, and realizes that what mamoru is telling him to do could, in fact, still lead to both disparate goals  
and kunzite does Not Like Being Manipulated  
he looks at the others, who are having trouble looking away from the light, but when they do, it's with concern. for him. even nephrite! and  
kunzite remembers  
very shortly before they tricked stupid trusting mamoru  
zoisite standing between himself and the senshi, ready to try and protect him with every inch of his small body  
and now, zoisite is moving  
to protect mamoru  
from him

Ellorgast:  
oh shi

smokingbomber:  
kunzite shadow-steps away from that place. he runs. a strategic retreat. he runs. that crystal already has the others. he knows its addictive taste. he knows what it's like to be enthralled and he won't let himself be taken again. he doesn't let himself question when or where he knows that from. he just needs to regroup...

Ellorgast:  
aaaaa

smokingbomber:  
mamoru, 'well shit.'

Ellorgast:  
I love the idea that it's Kunzite who resists and now they gotta chase him down  
maybe Mamoru and the other three can have a Moment there

smokingbomber:  
kunzite is waging a mighty war within himself  
mamoru and the other three definitely have A Moment there  
but i'm terrible at Moments  
(group moments anyway) so i'mma handwave this one, you can write it if you want lol  
they don't really remember  
there's too much dark energy and baggage in the way  
(there's also still this creepy shit moving around in the alleys but honestly i just put that in there because suisho expected an external conflict and i wouldn't really know where to go with that)  
literally THIS IS WHERE THE UNIVERSES CONVERGE FOR THE NEXT SCENE  
they just get there in vastly different ways

Ellorgast:  
GOOD I don't want to lose the frankly brilliant dialogue and interactions on the senshi side  
(honestly it was all brilliant to begin with because tied up on the bottom shelf in a corner store I mean)

smokingbomber:  
oh no this is totally a choose your own adventure  
you get to keep everything

Ellorgast:  
Good

smokingbomber:  
oh wait  
i mean  
you get to keep them all because they're branches in the same CYOA book, but  
like  
i just mean the NEXT scene because  
right after their Moment the senshi converge on mamoru and the guys in the park  
and there's blah blah blah lol lol lol except without kunzite  
and kunzite is brooding throughout the whole thing  
and resolves to Do Something About This Dammit because he's been brooding away from the reminder of what he really wants  
so he comes back and rei gets really uneasy and mamoru is frowning  
even though he's hiding/invisible/silent/etc  
and he gets more and more aggravated because look the guys are actually mingling with the senshi wtf is this shit  
so basically that moment which inevitably happens where mamoru's not looking  
kunzite teleport in, teleport out +1  
er, where nobody's looking at mamoru  
SO  
we get the universes converging on "mamoru is kidnapped take 2", to make things convenient for everyone involved  
in the conbenie mamoru dropped his phone when kunzite grabbed him  
so jadeite has it in both branches  
ok. so.  
mamoru is not about to attack kunzite in either one.  
oh man no they do diverge lol because in one kunzite is just being kind of an entitled dick and in the other he's furious  
oh well  
okay we'll keep on with furious kunzite pajamaparkverse

SO!!

Kunzite Just Teleported In, Teleported Out +1, and is absolutely furious because the other guys are taken in and he won't be enthralled again. He's a little like the clutch of dwarves blindly sitting in a circle in what they think is a dark smoky hut, while all around them is sunshine and beauty and heaven, declaring they Won't Be Taken In.

At any rate, he grabs Mamoru and teleports out, directly to the North Pole-- he was aiming for the gardens he and Zoisite shared, but Rei's ofuda was so god-mode that literally its application to the floor collapsed the entirety of the Dark Kingdom underground complex dimension, so they end up in a crater in the ice and snow, and here's Mamoru barefoot in pajamas and Kunzite's got him under one arm like a sack of potatoes. Mamoru immediately starts shivering, and then legit trying to climb Kunzite like a tree because he does not want to get dropped into the snow.

Obviously Kunzite is unbothered by the cold. He's also so furious he probably wouldn't notice if he were freezing to death anyway. He's also physically bigger than Mamoru, no matter how much power Mamoru's got, and despite this not actually being the Dark Kingdom anymore, Mamoru's still at a disadvantage at the moment because there's *actually* no earth under all that snow for him to get a grip on. He's just got what he's carrying, he can't pull anything from anywhere else. (Granted, what he's carrying is the heart of the Earth in his chest, but Kunzite doesn't know that.)

Kunzite is also not having any of this 'I am being climbed by a punkass little bitch who throws flowers even when he's possessed by evil' business.

He jerks Mamoru away from himself by the pajama shirt, then grabs his neck with his other hand and holds him at arm's length.

Mamoru's dangling ignominiously and holding both hands up to grip Kunzite's arm and try to get some of his own weight off, even if it doesn't help because Kunzite's squeezing. Mamoru can't help but flash back to when he was doing the same thing to Usagi, when D-Point was still the Dark Kingdom, and that's when *Mamoru* gets angry, because this shit they stomped like twenty-five years ago is still coming back to hurt people he loves--

\--and while previously he was like 'lol I'm not gonna waste a henshin on these losers' now he's like 'okay it's time to try and use god-mode to shock the fuck out of Kunzite'.

Abruptly Kunzite's arm is getting broken by King Endymion.

"You need to stop," the lavender king says, finally actually angry, but his anger in these years has turned into a coldly practical, efficient thing; Mamoru has become someone who knows that love conquers all, but sometimes there's collateral damage, or cancers that have to be excised, and sometimes you have to hurt people to heal them-- like re-breaking a limb that's healed crooked.

King Endymion holds Kunzite's arm in place, broken cleanly at the centers of the radius and ulna. For the time it takes the man to speak, Kunzite's too shocked by the act, and the ability and knowledge inherent in its practice. It's too active an emotion to let the pain in, to let the dark energy creep closer: he feels, absurdly, like a proud teacher whose student has surpassed him, once he's shoved the shock into a box to deal with later, and sectioned away the pain. 

And then as Mamoru's about to say something else, Kunzite drops and swings out a leg, lashing out at the King's knees. They connect with a solid thud which has a sickening crack at the back of it, and then Mamoru's falling--

\--and completely ignoring his own incendiary pain because he's *far* too distressed by what Kunzite just did to his own arm. He pulls himself through the snow with his other elbow, trying to keep from moving Kunzite's arm any further while still gripping it, and he's yelling as he does-- "You IDIOT! You've torn tissue and ligament and nerves, and the nerves are the fucking WORST to reconstruct, and you're probably going to be trying to kill me while I heal the goddamn thing!"

Kunzite just stares as this overdressed man, pulling himself by the elbow because his knees aren't working correctly and may actually be seriously injured, *lecturing him for the damage he did to himself*. Tuxedo Kamen-- he *looks* like Tuxedo Kamen, though, doesn't he? Endymion-- Mamoru Chiba. His hair's lighter than its usual raven black, shot through with a silver reminiscent of Kunzite's own. His mask is tied on, he has more medals dragging through the snow, he looks older than the early twenties he usually seems. Even beyond the lecturing there's a gravitas there, and the chill of his practicality-focused fury is behind even that.

When King Endymion gets close enough, he reaches to pull off Kunzite's glove with his free hand, and then bites his own glove off, catching hold of Kunzite's bare hand with his own. "Don't move," he says flatly. It has the feel of a command, one which holds more majesty and duty than any of Beryl's could ever have hoped to display. His voice is so much more familiar somewhere at the back of Kunzite's mind, or maybe the base of his spine; he listens to it, and he obeys in spite of himself.

And then he tells himself that if the annoying boy is still idiot enough to do things like trust liars and heal enemies, he might as well take advantage; there's no point in cutting off his nose to spite his face-- it's not obeying. It's just sense.

And then he can't help forgetting even that justification.

The energy his King pours into him takes away the pain Kunzite had shoved in an oubliette in his mental card catalogue. It takes away the pain, and the dark energy hides from it, not afraid of being obliterated, but inherently distrusting and disliking the sunlight-- it tries to pull Kunzite with it, to influence him to shut himself down emotionally--

\--and for the first time, he *notices* it actively trying to influence his mood, his decisions.

The anger this time is Kunzite's own, and Mamoru the psychic, healing him, can tell that that anger is no longer pointed at him and the Senshi.

For the first time, in that heady field of golden clarity and the calm unshakeable mountains, of honey and the scent of chamomile, of the sea at night reflecting endless stars-- for the first time, Kunzite can recognise that his logic *didn't make sense*. That his decisions hadn't been based on knowledge and skill and experience, but on artificially inflated and emphasized negative emotional reactions. That the energy Mamoru is giving him is an addictive drug indeed: the truth, unfiltered.

Oh how that fury fills him when he lets it, and this time he can see the attempt at influence as it happens. He sees something not inherent to him trying to expand that anger, ride on it, bring him back around to hating everyone and everything except Zoisite, beauty, and darkness.

Mamoru patiently watches the recognition cycle begin, without judgement or encouragement. It's not his to attend. He offers only calm, focus, and stability, and they're there to lean on if Kunzite wants to, or to ignore if he does not; he maintains the energy flow.

He broke the arm, and that's what he heals first, bone to bone and marrow to marrow. He moves on, one damage after another, as Kunzite takes the time to carefully analyze all the decisions he's made in the past, and when his methods deviated and how. Ligaments, muscle tissue, blood vessels, nerves. He leaves the bruise like a mark to remind Kunzite for a little while, and slowly tapers off the energy he's giving.

Kunzite doesn't chase it, which is King Endymion's first indication that the awareness is going to stick. 

"You just needed free of the brainwashing, of what Beryl kept reinforcing on all of you. You were the last to be imprisoned, weren't you? I guess it had less time to wear off, or maybe she just did it recently enough in your subjective timeline to--" 

"Stop talking," says Kunzite, slowly withdrawing his hand and reaching for his glove, sitting up. "Fix your knees."

Mamoru's silent for a breathless second, then asks like he's had the floor kicked out from under him, "Are you-- are you back?" 

"Fix your knees, my Prince."

"King now, actually--"

"Endymion."

"Right yes sorry."

\---

so anyway while all that is going on, there's stuff going on in the park too, because of course there is (IE, they get back and the rest of everything happens)


End file.
